Éric Rohmer

Along with Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and Claude Chabrol, director Eric Rohmer was one of the members of the influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Though not nearly as internationally known as Godard or Truffaut, Rohmer was nonetheless considered to be the master of the movement by his contemporaries, despite being more aesthetically conservative than the others. Rohmer had his start working as an editor and critic for the international film magazine Cahiers du Cinema before embarking on his directing career. Despite a slow start marred with financial difficulties and lack of interest from his fellow countrymen, Rohmer finally emerged onto the stage with his first of three film cycles, "Six Moral Tales," which established his talky, philosophical style that either intrigued or frustrated audiences. But by the time the six tales were completed, Rohmer had established himself as an exceptional examiner of human frailty uncomplicated by the trappings of genre expectations or plot devices. Rohmer followed with two other film cycles, "Comedies and Proverbs" and "Tales of the Four Seasons," which only enhanced his standing in filmmaking circles as one of the true auteurs of international cinema.